Good News & Bad News, page-14463

..."I wonder whether the lithium said to be here will ever reach the market."

Bolivia, has a long, and sad story, of severe historical over-exploitation of its national mineral resources by foreign owned entities, who basically raped it of its resources, and then packed up and left, leaving nothing behind for the Bolivians, but huge holes, and waste-heaps, and lots of rusting machinery, and very importantly, ...no money...!

As a result, the Bolivians are today, just a little ..'tetchy' whenever the subject arises of them allowing foreign companies to come back into their country, and set up camp 'again' to, this time, 'exploit' their national Lithium resources, and hence, they seem to have a long habit of voting in Socialist Governments, whose elected leaders, all, have a very good understanding, of just which side, their own bread, is buttered on, and, by whom.

One of their recent el-Presidente`s, a guy named Evo Morales, had the bright idea of only allowing the Bolivians, themselves, to exploit their own nation's very large Lithium Brine deposits, but, unfortunately for him, their efforts to do so amounted to nothing, because of a severe lack of local knowledge about the Lithium mining and refining processes, and the complete lack of motivation to, bother, finding out, among his own 'siesta-loving' Bolivian 'Socialist' countrymen.

As well as that, it is also, a somewhat unfortunate fact for the Bolivians, that Bolivia's Lithium Brines also contain very, high levels, of dissolved Magnesium in them as well, as the much sought after Lithium, which makes it particularly, 'chemically-tricky' and expensive, to try and separate the two.

HOLD 'em ..TIGHT, Folks...!